


Poetry meme - Master and Commander

by ingreatwaters



Category: Aubrey-Maturin Series - Patrick O'Brian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-19 03:39:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5952324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ingreatwaters/pseuds/ingreatwaters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <b>The rules</b>
</p>
<p>1: Pick five <s>fandoms</s> characters? books? Whatever seems good. List them in alphabetical order.</p>
<p>2: Visit this site to find your first RANDOM POEM OF POWER. Write down the 5th line (yes, even if it's an E.E. Cummings poem and you wind up with an apostrophe). Repeat five times and - you guessed it - list 'em in alphabetical order! (No cheating, mind! This is a challenge and it's always been about creativity.)</p>
<p>3: I think you can see where this is going. Write a very quick 50-word half-drabble for each fandom (try to do it all in one sitting - make your brain explode!), using the line from the poem as a prompt. You don't have to include it in the half-drabble - it's just inspiration.</p>
<p>4: Bravo! Have a cookie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poetry meme - Master and Commander

**Author's Note:**

> I liked the idea of trying five characters. I'd been poking about in _The Ionian Mission_ while I was reading Collingwood stuff on the first holiday, which is how Thornton got in, but more minor character fic is a good thing.
> 
> Originally posted on Livejournal [here](http://perfect-duet.livejournal.com/553619.html)

**_Diana Villiers_  
(about the woman, whom I taught, in bed)**

Had Jack been hers she would have taught him better, for he is only thoughtless, and so eager to please that he could easily be trained.

But Sophie is very different, so dutiful that she cannot want what she believes she should not, and teaching her is another matter entirely.

 

**_Jack Aubrey_  
(I no longer strive to strive towards such things)**

Stephen rarely dares to look towards the future, and for Tom the present seems enough, but for Jack it has always been a clear line to the horizon. He is more lost now than the others could ever be, for he has never had to chart a future for himself.

 

**_John Thornton_  
(Makes the Heavens portable)**

The letters from home sit by him as he works, but duty presses, and as the light fails he knows he will not be reading them that day. Quiet evening rituals, prayers for those at home and at sea, and the letters lying by him for the first morning light.

 

**_Stephen Maturin_  
(Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year)**

He knows very few of the stars by name, but he knows that their patterns endure. The inconstant moon and her goddess are one thing, the unchanging stars in their courses another. But here in the south all the stars are different, and he does not know where to follow.

 

**_Tom Pullings_  
(Puffed by the breeze to a little bellying sail)**

He loves Surprise every way - the wild challenge of storms, the stern beauty of fine uniforms and Sunday neatness, the days when no sail needs touched - but best of all like this, working clothes and a cheerful working mood, the wind just playful enough to need an eye on it.


End file.
